


Times Fox Mulder Cried

by Frangipanidownunder



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-20
Updated: 2016-12-22
Packaged: 2018-08-23 13:49:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 12,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8330221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Frangipanidownunder/pseuds/Frangipanidownunder
Summary: What have they gained?





	1. Something to Prove

When she finally closed the door to his apartment and he strained to listen to her footfalls in the passage – twenty-seven measured, confident paces before a truck blared past his half-open window – he fell back against the arm of the couch. She’d laid his Aztec blanket over him and placed a pillow under his aching head. He’d accepted her concern, her medical ministrations, her school-marm tutting and head-shaking; but he couldn’t, wouldn’t, accept her sympathy. 

When she’d picked up his hand in hers, impossibly small and warm, he knew she had been ready to deliver some grand speech about how she’d revise her field report to accommodate a more acceptable version of events. He could see it in her eyes, the tiny lines that knotted between her brows; hear it in the way she quietly cleared her throat; saw it in the way she licked her lips. He pulled his hand away and she’d huffed out a minute sigh of defeat.

He rubbed his face with his hand. His entire head felt numb. He couldn’t close his eyes without seeing flashes; the searing light in his eye, faces of military men leaning over him, a needle, fighting a mask. Judging by the tautness in his body, it wasn’t just his mind that held on to abject fear. But what was he frightened of? Certainly not the truth. Not of little green men. Not of the government and its lies. He’d gone to Ellens to find the answers. He shivered violently. Shock, she’d said. He needed fluids, rest and warmth. 

When they first got back she’d tended to him like a patient, not a partner. That had hurt a little. He thought they had made some progress since that first case in Oregon, thought he’d cracked her shell, could bend her to his way of seeing things. When she was taking his temperature, he wanted to rip off the cool wet cloth from his forehead and yell at her. In his mind he was reciting the words he would say: “Scully, back at Bellefleur you bared yourself to me, literally. And I bared myself to you, emotionally. Why are you doing your doctor thing now? Why can’t you just be my partner? Why can’t you just…” He would have added, “believe me” but her clinical manner told him it was a stretch too far. She had a report to file. He had the good sense to stay quite.

And now she had left him alone. He was physically incapable of telling her what had happened inside that base. Mentally incapable of understanding what had happened. Emotionally incapable of asking her to stay with him tonight. 

He realised at the stroke of midnight what it was that he was afraid of. A fine sheen of sweat shimmered over his arms and chest as the low moon filtered through the Venetian slats. His heart thudded. His breath skittered out of his dry mouth. He was frightened that he was never going to be able to prove he was right. He wasn’t worried about proving it to the top brass, to the public, not even to himself. He was frightened that he would never be able to prove he was right to her.

He wiped the tears from his eyes and realised that while he still couldn’t remember, he could feel again.


	2. Where's Scully?

The journey back from Arecibo was cool. Not just the air-conditioning on the plane, but the way Scully had reverted to professional mode as soon as they were at the airport. Just when he thought he had her thawing out, she froze and reconstructed those walls. He watched her now, scanning the airline magazine, jaw taut, shoulders hunched, lips pressed together. He knew she hated flying, but he also knew she hated picking him up like an errant child more.

When Deep Throat died and he’d spent a while in the hospital she’d been there for him. Told him the whole story, wrote the reports, kept Skinner at bay. He remembered how she’d read to him when she thought he was sleeping. A battered copy of The Old Man and the Sea given to her by one of the nurses. The way she breathed out the prose was enough to spike a fever. He ‘slept’ more than he really should. He thought he caught her smiling to herself one night, way past visiting hours, when he chanced a look at the chair she’d made her own. To her credit she kept on reading just like Santiago kept on chasing that damned fish.

So why was he surprised now that she had cooled? He had, after all, pretty much excommunicated her before Matheson’s suggested trip to Puerto Rico. He’d blanked her at every turn. Yet she followed him, tracked down George Hale and shucked off those two agents, flying in to rescue him without complaint. The tape was ruined, but still she’d been there for him. He treasured the look she’d given him, her hand on his. He’d let the emotion of that moment fortify him like a couple of whiskies might have done once upon a time. 

“I may not have the X-Files, Scully, but I still have my work. And I've still got you.”

Perhaps his admission frightened her. It shocked him. One year in and he was already reliant on someone else. Someone sent to spy on him, someone who questioned his beliefs and viewed life and everything in it between a rigid set of scientific parameters. He’d urged her to look beyond the limits of those borders, to see the rainbows at the edges of the universe, just like she urged him to see life in monochrome. Could he expect that she would start to change for him, like he was starting to change for her? Why should she? He wasn’t assigned to her.

When she didn’t return his call for the third day in a row, he went to Quantico. She was at the end of a lecture and had a crowd of eager young students enthralled. She didn’t see him standing in the shadows. She didn’t see him as she walked to her car, chatting with a colleague he didn’t recognise. Was this really Scully? This relaxed, animated woman. He knew she had a life before him, but how could she have so easily morphed back into it? She pulled open the door of her car and smiled up at the man she’d walked with. He waved to her and she waved back. There was a lightness about her that seemed familiar. The lightness she’d had when she first entered his office. 

He rang her cell as she shut the door. He saw her check the caller ID and he saw her end the call. As she drove out towards her home, her new life, he felt a prickle of humiliation, the familiar sting of salt in his eyes. She wasn’t Scully for now. She was Dana again.


	3. Believe

Big Blue was a good excuse for a nice little trip to the water. But he hadn’t banked on that snappy little furball coming along for the ride. Scully was all mock indignation at having her weekend ruined. As if she even liked her weekends. He was pretty sure her home life yawned wide open and empty on a Friday evening, just like his. After their year so far, family deaths, fake alien autopsies, black oil, Modell, god Modell… he thought she might appreciate a weekend away. And this was as close to a weekend away as he could arrange. But that yappy little shit was sitting in the back of the car dominating the conversation and dictating the pace. His jaw ached from all the tooth grinding he was doing and he was pretty sure that vein on his temple was about ready to pop open.

“Call of nature, I’m afraid, Mulder.”   
Her hair swung round in his peripheral vision and as he turned to take her in, it settled back around her face in the way he especially liked. The sun, low now in the late afternoon, framed a halo of flyaway copper hairs. He couldn’t help but smile. She quirked her eyebrow at him.   
“Scully, you’re probably going to tell me exactly how large his bladder is and how many milliliters of urine it can hold.”   
She went to open her mouth but he carried on. “And you probably made some calculation about the length of time it takes to fill his bladder against the number of miles we can safely travel before a comfort break.”  
Her lips opened again, with a tiny popping sound, that he committed to memory. He held up his hand.  
“And you’ve no doubt been careful about his intake of water and researched the number of rest stops along the highway.”  
She frowned now, not even trying to cut in this time.  
“You are the single most organised and prepared person I have ever met and I thank you for that, given the unexpected guest that is currently chewing on the vinyl arm rest in this rental car, but if we can just press on for a little while longer, we will arrive at our destination before the heavens open and I guarantee you that our toilet stops will be far more comfortable.” He turned to her again, offering her what he hoped was his most apologetic, yet understanding smile.  
“Fine, Mulder. I can wait.” She lowered her eyebrows along with her voice and he felt suitably told.  
Fat drops splattered against the windshield. He watched the window-wipers with great concentration for the rest of the silent journey.

The legend of Big Blue was the stuff of his childhood dreams. When a case involved the potential discovery of a new life-form on earth, rather than the alien beings he knew were still beyond the reach of Scully’s acceptance, he always held dear to the hope that the validation of his life’s work would be so much sweeter with Scully sharing the wonderment with him.   
He pulled the umbrella lower, hunching over so that it might keep the rain from causing her hair to frizz. He secretly liked the frizz. It reminded him of that night in Bellefleur, when she lay on his bed listening to him and her hair curled around her face. She always looked younger, less like she’d been to hell and back with him. 

He knew he should have been more sympathetic when Queequeg went missing. Her tiny voice when she said, ‘Poor Queequeg’ did something to his nerve endings, and he replayed it over and over in his head just so he could enjoy the delicious feeling it gave him. He knew that was wrong, but he couldn’t help it. He should have hugged her. Or offered to buy her a new dog. Or something equally noble. Instead, he selfishly held on to the smallness of her tone.  
As they sat on that rock, neither of them willing to admit how scared they were, but both of them willing to open up a little more than usual, he saw how much she really understood him and how much she didn’t. And he knew it was the same for him. How could two people be so close yet so far apart? How could Scully care more for that damned dog than she seemed to for his ideas? For him? How could he even think that? Was he so self-absorbed? Did he need to ask that, given the lecture she’d just dished out?

Friday night was the same lonely expanse of hours. He sunk his head back on the arm of the couch and prepared to watch Jaws again. The small rap on the door could only be Scully. She had a particular knock. He sniffed under his arms, rubbed his tee-shirt down and flicked off the crumbs from his jeans. He hoped the apartment didn’t smell too much of pepperoni.   
“Hi, not disturbing you, am I?” She slipped by him, relaxed in jeans and sneakers. “Any pizza left?”  
“Help yourself,” he said, pulling the box out of the fridge. “Beer too?”  
“Sure.”  
“Scully, any minute now you’re going to tell me what that strange looking thing is under your arm.”  
She let out a giggle that caught him off guard. He swallowed the beer, letting the bitter fizz play on his tongue. Scully, beer, pizza and giggles. Friday was suddenly four times better.  
“I got you a present.”  
His heart hammered. “Why?”  
She shrugged. “Just because.”  
He took the gift-wrapped parcel from her, relishing the brief touch of their hands. It was long, weighty. He took it to the couch, patted the seat next to him. She sat, took a dainty mouthful of pizza, smiled at him.  
“A peg-leg. Scully, you shouldn’t have.”  
She moved a little closer, so that he could smell the perfume of her shampoo, see the freckles across her nose, listen to her breathing. “I want you to look at it and understand that you are a whole and wonderful person.”  
He opened his mouth but she cut him off.  
“That your life is worthwhile, that you are worthy of love.”  
His lips dried out but he parted them ready to speak. She held up her hand.  
“That your quest is not in vain, that I am here with you. You are making something of your life.”  
He sat back, defeated. She took his hands in hers.  
“Mulder, you don’t need peg-legs or hooks for hands. You just need to believe.”  
He snorted. She leaned in close, and whispered. “In yourself.”

He couldn’t sleep. The burning at the corner of his eyes made his nose twitch. He sniffed, shocked at the loudness of the sound in his living room. He turned over and reached under the couch, picking up the peg-leg. He brought it up to his chest and let the tears flow.


	4. Never

The fact that Scully had to tell him that he wasn’t a loser really rankled.   
He shifted on his couch, still disturbed by the fact that Eddie Van Blundht had sat there, had listened to messages on his answer phone, had been through his fridge – two of his experimental apples had been moved, leaving a brown smear on the shelf, and one of his beers was missing.   
And if having his home invaded had been personal, having his life taken over was too much. The image of Scully and that…that freak about to do the wild thing on her sofa had plagued his every waking second. That and the fact that she had seemingly let all her walls down for this trumped up version of himself. How could she not have recognised him as a fraud? Was she that desperate for a date, that fake Mulder fitted the bill? After the Ed Jerse nightmare her cancer had made her worryingly cavalier. But seriously. What was she thinking?  
Then again, what was he thinking? Why hadn’t he ever done what Van Blundht had done? Why had he never even thought to turn up at her door with a bottle of wine and the promise of a night of conversation?   
All he knew at that moment was that Scully had always been a poor liar. He really was a loser.

The next case left his nerves ragged. Skinner looked dirty for while there. They didn’t need any more heavyweights lining up against them in this battle they were in. Scully especially needed all the support she could get. She’d never admit it but not being involved was the best thing for her right now. She got tired. She just covered it up – drank more coffee, looked out the window to stifle her yawns, went to her mother’s at weekends more often, didn’t call him at midnight any more.  
He hadn’t seen her for a week. He felt every one of those empty hours. He stood outside her apartment for an eternity, questioning his decision. Would she be cranky with him for not calling first? Would she be at Maggie’s? Had she already eaten? Did she enjoy eating any more? Was it too late to call on her? 

She pulled back the door and quirked an eyebrow. “I could hear you thinking from my kitchen. Come in.”  
He followed her not sure whether to present her with the flowers, the wine or the chocolates first. They were all squashed in a paper bag together and he suddenly couldn’t remember the etiquette of a date. Was it a date if the other party hadn’t agreed to it?   
“What did you say, Mulder?” Her face was the picture of amusement as she grabbed two glasses from the overhead cupboard and placed them on the kitchen bench. “You do have wine in that bag, don’t you? I could really use a drink. I’ve been working on a paper for a conference next week and it’s so dry that a little alcohol and a little Mulder will go a long way towards sparking it up.”  
“Just a little Mulder?” Oh god, where did that come from? He looked at the floor waiting for the moment to pass.   
Her snorting giggle surprised him and he looked up again. “I’m prepared for a lot of Mulder, if that’s what you’re offering.”  
She did that lick-lipping thing and grabbed the bag from him, peering inside before smiling up at him. “Ooh, Belgian chocolates. My favourite. And chrysanthemums. Thank you, Mulder.” She stood on tip-toe and gave him a sweet kiss on his cheek. He blinked. Flirty Scully was gold.

She pressed her lips with the back of her hand. “I haven’t had this much to drink since…” She had the decency to look contrite. “Well, my mouth has gone numb.”   
“Does that mean you don’t want a top up?” He grabbed the bottle. The second one.   
She checked her watch.   
“Oh, Scully. I’m sorry, I’m keeping you up.” He went to stand.  
“No, Mulder! You’re not. Really.” She patted the seat. “Sit back down. I’m having a great time. I don’t know why I looked at my watch. It’s hardly likely to tell me how high my blood alcohol level is.”   
She smothered a giggle into her hand. Such tiny hands. So delicate. How did they cut up dead people? How did they aim a weapon with such deadly accuracy? What other magic could they do? He loosened the collar of his shirt.  
“Imagine if that was a thing. A breathalyzer on your wrist. How many lives would that save?”   
He sipped the wine, listening to her voice as she projected magical and ridiculous ideas that would cure the sick and dying in the world.   
All he wanted was a way to save just one.  
He hadn’t even noticed that she’d stopped talking. He looked up at her, cheeks pink, freckles merging together in the soft light, lips wet and apart slightly, her lipstick smudged over the glass. He had a sudden urge to lick it off.  
“What’s wrong, Mulder? You came here. To me. Why are you being so coy?”  
“I…shouldn’t have come here. I was trying to…”  
“To be like Eddie Van Blundht?” She put the glass down. “With a silent H.”  
He shrugged, felt the tendons in his neck tighten.  
She moved closer. He could see the fine hairs across her face, the rise of her chest, smell the wine on her breath. “You want to know what he said to make me want to kiss him…you, is that it? Is that why you came here? Is this a date, Mulder?”   
He wasn’t sure about the tone of her voice. Was she flirting or teasing? He tried to shift back but he was hard up against the arm of the sofa.   
“Are you frightened, Mulder? Of me?” She seemed to be purring. “Don’t you want to know the answer? The truth?”  
“Scully,” he said, finally finding a voice. “I think I should go, before…”  
Her eyebrow quirked but she stayed where she was. He could see down her top. The line between her breasts so promising.   
“Before what, Mulder? Before we do something we regret?” She placed a hand on his chest. Leaned into his ear. Her breath hot against his neck. “Would you regret it?”  
As soon as he took in the breath, she shot back, propelling herself away from him. His momentary pause had given her the opportunity to retreat. What a fool.  
She tucked her hair behind her ear, straightened herself up, regaining her composure.  
“Scully…I…”  
She picked the glasses off the table behind the sofa, walked to the kitchen.   
He should go. Leave her to do what she did best – gather her walls around her again. Internalise her feelings. Regret her actions for a few days and return on Monday as professional Scully again.  
He should stay. Smooth the waters. Get her to talk it through. Open herself to him. Be Dana. No regrets.  
He swallowed hard. 

The smashing of glass catapulted him up. She stood with her back to him, the glass in fragments at her feet, her shoulders rising and falling. He stepped forward, put his hands tentatively, each side of her neck. She tensed, half-turned her chin to him. He moved closer, moulding his body to hers. She relented, turned, relaxed into him, tucked herself under his chin.  
“You didn’t give me a chance to answer your question.”  
“You don’t have to say anything.”   
Her tears fell on his shirt. His fell on her head.  
“But I do.”  
She sniffed, trembling against him. She looked up, tears ensuring her eyes sparkled clear blue at him.  
He kissed her hair and whispered, “The answer is never.”


	5. Out of Control

He was glad to be home. The latest hospital stay was still too raw. Strapped down, the window cruelly opened, the paralyzing fear when the nurse injected him with drugs he didn’t need and hadn’t authorized. As Scully fussed in the kitchen he couldn’t help but wonder if his greatest fear had really been facing the creature that Pincus had become or the fact that for those terrifying minutes his life was entirely out of his control.   
“Mulder, would you like some coffee?” Her voice was a bright spot of gold in the stark black of his mood.   
Skinner had directed that he and Scully take a week’s leave of absence.   
“You’ve had two difficult cases in a row. Your stress levels must be sky-high. I cannot, in all conscience, allow you to continue to investigate any more cases without insisting you both take some down time,” he said, leaning over his hands on the desk. He was looking at Scully when he spoke, but Mulder was in no doubt that Skinner was really addressing him. Mulder finished the unspoken part of Skinner’s message, as they left the office, “and you need to come back with your mental faculties fully restored or you might find that the X-Files are no longer yours.”

They finished coffee and Scully insisted on visiting the video store. She came back with The Fly remake. She flashed him the look when he opened his mouth to object.  
“I nearly got One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.” She popped a chip in her mouth. “but Jeff Goldblum.”  
Insects, mental hospitals. Really, Scully? He shifted a little further away from her, but she just helped herself to more chips and settled back. He felt a little like he had at the hospital. Alien. Not physically, like Pincus. But like he didn’t fit anywhere. Like nobody understood him. Perhaps Skinner was right, he had been more stressed than he realised over the past few weeks. Why was Scully not taking it seriously? Usually she’d be all over him with advice and meaningful looks. But here she was sitting by his side watching bad sci-fi. Admittedly, the scenario was a fantasy of his. But right now his perspective was so skewed that he was finding it hard to find the joy.   
The movie played on. Scully had moved closer, her arm pressing against him. He played with the skin on the inside of his wrist, still sore from the restraints. Scully seemed absorbed. He didn’t have the heart to ask her to turn it off. His stomach was rebelling at the images. He closed his eyes, trying to stave off the impending wave of nausea. Was he having a panic attack? He hadn’t had one of those for years. His breath hitched in his throat and he felt sweat prickling his skin. His heart hammered and no matter how much oxygen he tried to suck in he couldn’t stop the black spots behind his eyes from widening.

 

His next memory was her hair swinging over his face, her eyes wide, her mouth forming a delicious O. Her face was millimeters away from his. Her hands were on his chest. She was straddled across his waist. He was lying on the floor, next to his couch. How did they get here? Why were they still fully clothed? Why couldn’t he remember kissing her? It struck him as entirely unjust that he should find himself in this position – Dana Katherine Scully astride him on his apartment floor – and he had no memory of the events leading up to it.   
“Mulder. Talk to me.”  
But what to say in this delicate position? Sweet nothings didn’t seem appropriate. His scientifically rigourous Scully would surely respond to something more profound than his usual, but long-time unused, repertoire of sexual wordplay.  
“Um…I want you.”   
Lame. Lame. Lame. His head dropped back to the floor. It hurt. A lot.  
“Mulder?”  
God, her low husky voice was her best one.   
“I need you?”  
Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. She didn’t need him to need her. She needed him to revere her, to adore her, to love her.  
“What do you need me to do?” She was whispering in his ear now. Her hair tickled the side of his face. Her ass was rolling over his groin and those tiny hands were kneading his chest.  
It took a gargantuan effort to concentrate on anything but her presence. She was on top of him, for Christ’s sake. “Kiss me?”  
She pulled back, her chin tucking into her neck and her lips pressing together. “What?”  
He rubbed his forehead, reality settling in the room like a third wheel. “Kismet, Scully. I said kismet.”  
She was standing now, arms folded, eyebrows knitted together. “You fainted.”  
He struggled up to his elbows. “I did?”  
“You did. And you fell off the couch.”  
“I fell off the couch?”  
“That’s what I said.”  
“Did I pull you on top of me?” He scratched at my head, feeling his hair sticking out all ways. The throbbing at his temples was fever pitch.  
“What? No!” She held her arms at her side, clenching her fists. “I couldn’t get you to wake up.”  
“So you decided the best way to do that was to sit on me and whisper in my ear, Doctor Scully?”  
She huffed out a breath. “Mulder, you were unresponsive. I think you’ve been under so much pressure recently that your body just gave out on you. What’s the last thing you remember?”  
You rolling your little ass all over my nether regions?  
“You chose The Fly, Scully. Why would you do that?”  
“You love The Fly, Mulder. I wanted you to feel comfortable. You needed to relax.” She was biting her lower lip now.  
He pulled himself onto the couch and ran a hand over his face. He could barely feel his features. They were numb. “Scully, why are you here? Really?”  
“As your physician, I needed to be here to make sure you were coping. You’ve been through a lot, Mulder. The New Spartans, Pincus…”   
“I’ve been through worse, Scully.”  
Her hands unclenched and she looked down to the floor. Her nose wrinkled. “I thought you wanted me here.” It was barely a whisper. Her chin jutted out. Color rose high on her cheeks. “You said I was your one in five billion.”  
He laughed softly, but his heart did a flip. “Nobody else on this whole damn planet believes you, Scully.” He leaned over her, his facing bearing down on hers.  
She shucked out an embarrassed snort. “Mulder.” It was more a holding statement than any declaration of love. She placed a hand on his chest. He moved back. A little.  
“Scully, come on. Why are you here? Skinner gave you a week of leave. You should go to the coast…”  
“And solve the case of the killer doll again?” Her blue eyes fixed on him.  
“Your mother’s then.”   
“And listen to her friends tell me about all the bachelors they could fix me up with?”  
“Your apartment. Why aren’t you at home?” Yeah, why aren’t you at home, Scully? It’s late.   
She took his hands. “Do you really want me to go home, Mulder?”  
God no. Never, Scully. Never. “I think you should.”  
Her eyes glistened. “You’re a shit liar, Mulder.”  
“Then don’t believe me.”   
She shifted from one foot to the other. Hesitation. It was all he needed to see. He grabbed her wrists, brought them up between them.  
“Mulder, are you okay?”  
“I will be if you let me kiss you.”   
She shifted to the other foot.  
His mouth plunged onto hers. Her lips were soft, pliant, sweet. He let go of her hands and his fingers traced the curve of her spine, the sway of hips, back up to her neck and chin and face.  
She pulled away first, leaving him momentarily bereft. “Are we really doing this?”   
Those little lines appeared between her brows. The lines that suggested too much thinking was going on in that beautiful mind of hers. He kissed the lines. He kissed her forehead.  
“Yeah, we’re really doing this, Scully.”  
“For the right reasons?”  
His lips brushed her jawline, tasting, teasing, nipping at her neck. He felt the prickle of gooseflesh across her skin. Her nipples hardened. His groin tightened.  
“I think that right now there are more right reasons than wrong ones, Scully.”  
She snuffled a soft giggle into the side of his face. “You don’t think that lust has caused your judgment to be slightly impaired here, Mulder?”  
“Who said anything about lust, Scully?” He scooped her up in his arms, pulling her close, turning round, depositing her back on his couch.   
She was eyeline with his groin. “I’d say that lust is about to have a hefty input into this transaction.”  
He grinned and let his fingers play with the zipper. “This isn’t lust, Scully.”  
“No?” her voice cracked, sending more waves of pleasure around his body.  
“No. This is me, Mulder, back in control, faculties intact, conscious, making the best decision of my life.” He sank down on his knees and took his face in his hands. “And this isn’t a transaction, Scully.”  
She had the good grace to look a little embarrassed. “Wrong terminology. Sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt you. How can I make it up to you?”  
“Kiss me where it hurts?”   
Giggling, she asked, “where does it hurt, Mulder? Here?” She peppered his face with soft kisses.   
God it felt good. She was giving him her mouth, her body, her time. Her trust.   
She kissed both his eyes. “Here?”   
His throat constricted. He whimpered, clamped his eyelids shut. Did he deserve this?  
“Hey,” she whispered, “you’re not going to cry on me, are you?   
She put a finger under his chin and lifted his face up. He saw her open before him. Walls down. Ready to relinquish some of her famous control. He shivered.  
“It’s not uncommon, the release of emotions, the vulnerability of the human body after sexual satisfaction. There’s no shame in it, Mulder.”  
Always the doctor. He shook his head, fighting it. The tears fell anyway. He groaned softly into her neck. “And to think we haven’t even started yet.”  
“We’ve been starting for years, Mulder.” She lifted his hand to her breast. “Let’s at least finish, this time.”


	6. Dirt dreams

He dreamt about the dirt more than anything else. It itched his ears, plugged his nostrils, made his fingernails heavy and choked him as it fell from his mouth. And even outside of the dreams, he couldn’t get the smell from under his nose. It followed him, filling his senses with the wet, organic odour. It spoilt his coffee, tarnished his breakfast cereal and tainted even the sweetest or strongest flavours. He wondered if Scully was experiencing the same thing. Opening his eyes, he inhaled deeply, groaning as the dirt taste hit the back of his throat.   
He fumbled for his phone. “Hey Scully. How’re you feeling today?”  
“Like I ate mud pie.”  
He sat up on his couch, stretching his legs out in front of him, flexing his toes. The sound of her voice soothed him and he yawned. When he focused again, his legs were melting and dripping all over the floor of his living room, pooling like the black oil, slithering apart, then regrouping. He dropped the phone and pushed himself back, away from the slick threat that was reshaping in front of him. He felt weak, his arms heavy with fatigue. The oil climbed up the edge of the couch, reaching him and reforming into his legs. By the time he blinked and came back to some kind of reality, Scully’s voice had morphed from pacifying to panicked.  
“I’m here, Scully. I just…”  
“Hold on Mulder, I’m on my way.”

He let her tend to him. Feeling his forehead, rubbing her soft palm over his cheeks and chin, through his hair, feeling the pulse on his neck.   
“I presume I’m still alive, Dr Scully.”  
She chuffed out a laugh. “Well, you’re the best looking corpse, I’ve ever seen, Agent Mulder.”  
The image flashed through his mind, unbidden. Him lying on a gurney, his face marked by three ugly scars on each cheek, his skin grey and mottled, his lips slightly apart and white. She was howling, heaving out messy, ugly sobs.  
He knocked her hand away and gulped in a dirty breath.  
“Mulder!”  
“Sorry, I’m…sorry.” He picked up her hand, rubbing her wrist. “Did I hurt you?”  
She shook her head. “Mulder, are you all right?”

He watched her as she fussed about in the kitchen, rooting through his cupboards, trying to put together a meal.  
“When was the last time you went shopping?”  
“Clearly some time before I got eaten by a giant mushroom,” he folded his arms. “Can’t we order take-out?”  
“You need to eat proper food, Mulder. MSG and E numbers are only going to add to your…condition.” She peered at the use-by date on the only packet of pasta he had in the pantry. “If you don’t want me to cook, why don’t we go to that little restaurant downtown? It serves decent food. Fresh food.”  
He nodded as carefully as he could without giving away his enthusiasm. But a vision hit him - of her sitting at a table wearing a low-cut black dress with the finest spaghetti straps, sitting with…no, it couldn’t be. Cancer Man? Pain sliced through his head and he staggered forward, clutching his temples. His vision greyed to pinpricks and his last thought was of that black-lunged bastard and what he did to Scully.

When he came to, the dirt smell was overpowering. His head throbbed, his throat was dry and waves of nausea clenched at his gut. He was laid out on his bed, stripped to his boxers, a sheet pulled up to his neck. Scully was sleeping in a chair next to his bed. A crackling image of her sitting like this as he lay in a hospital bed filled his mind and his ears with the chaos of a million voices. He squeezed his eyes shut and he saw himself again, held down by invisible forces on an angled bed, shiny against the stark background of the room he was in, pain in every nerve ending; and again being whipped in a bizarrely religious scene by a redhead who wasn’t Scully. His heart raced and he tried to sit up without waking her.   
“Lay back down, Mulder. Sleep.” She was up and pushing him back in an instant.  
“I can’t. It’s driving me crazy.”  
“What? The hallucinations? Are they getting worse?,” she sat down on the bed and frowned at him. “I think you need to go back to the hospital? Your system is still being affected by the fungus. What do you see? Can you describe the visions?”  
“I don’t know. It depends on what’s happening around me. The scenes seem to be connected to reality, somehow.” Maybe.   
“To reality, Mulder? You mean you’ve seen these things before? When? Are they cases?”  
He shrugged, suddenly unsure. “It doesn’t matter. I’m fine. I just need to get up. Do something.”  
She frowned, doubt flickering across her eyes. “Okay.What do you want to do? Watch a movie. Read? Play cards?”

She dealt like a pro. Why didn’t he know this about her before? Dana Scully, card shark. She smiled that enigmatic way she did when she knew she’d managed keep him guessing.  
“I keep unfolding like a flower?”  
“Something like that,” he said, chuffing out a laugh, when all he wanted to do was kiss her. Her tongue was resting between her lips and she was frowning. The tension in her neck made her mouth rounder, more inviting. His groin tingled. They’d been slowly feeling their way through the dark and confusing maze of an intimate relationship. Most of the time he felt like he was wearing a blindfold, relying on instinct and guesswork to navigate each day. He hoped she felt the same. He needed to open his eyes, see the light.  
“Mulder, it’s your turn.” She smiled indulgently, holding her cards close to her chest.  
He saw her suddenly, on all fours, twisting her hands in an obscene show of flexibility. Then she wore a black hat, quirked at a cute angle. A cascade of Scully faces where she was smiling. And flirty. He coughed, tasting the dirt in the back of his throat.   
“Sorry, I think I need some water.”  
“I’ll get it,” she said before he could stand up.  
When she returned, he was sitting upright on his couch, listening to the rhythmic beat of the fish tank filter. She sat next to him. He turned to take the water, but instead she threw it over him and stormed off. He sat, drenched and spluttering as his living room morphed into the Hoover Building and he absorbed the melee of an office of agents on a case…a missing person…someone important…

The doctor decided not to admit him. Scully was pissed. She held her mouth in a tight line.  
“You can come to my apartment.” Defeat caused the tone of her voice to take on that breathy edge. “But we’re not playing cards.”  
She pushed open the door and he flinched when he saw her slammed against the dresser, smashing the mirror. Her neck was bruised, she was wearing her pyjamas. She was fighting for her life…  
“Scuhh…oh god. Pfaster.”  
“What? Mulder, what do you see. Talk to me.”  
“You…here…him.”  
“Mulder, I’m here. It’s okay. There’s nobody else here but you and me. It’s safe.”   
Her voice was soothing, a lilting melody that wafted around his ears. “Pfaster is in jail, Mulder. He’s in jail.” She leant her head against his chest and he rubbed his hand through her hair. She was in one piece, perfect. He pulled her face up towards him.  
“You’re okay, Scully. You’re fine.” He ran his fingers over her skin, touched her neck, kissed her cheek tenderly.  
“Yes. I’m fine.” She kissed him back, a peck on his lips that snapped him back to reality. “Maybe we should go outside for a walk. Fresh air will do us both some good.”

The park bustled with people who had a life. Mulder felt some sense of peace returning as he strolled next to Scully. Dogs yapped and bounded. Joggers sweated and puffed. Kids zigzagged round trees, squealing. Mums pushed prams. He chanced a look at Scully and the image of her holding a newborn in her arms swam into his mind. He gasped so loudly she stopped and grabbed his arm.  
“Mulder?”  
“I’m fine.” He hung his head, trying to collect himself.  
She frowned, twisting her head to peer under his chin. “Are you…are you crying?”  
He shook his head, then nodded, feeling his brow crinkle and the tears track down his cheeks.   
“What is it?”  
“Nothing Scully. It’s nothing to worry about.” He swiped the wet away. “It’s all good. Really good.”  
“So, happy tears?”  
He blinked, smiling at her, his mind clearer than it had been in years. “Happy. Yes.”  
A smile crinkled at the corners of her mouth and she reached for his hand, squeezing it in her own as she pulled him on. 

The dream woke him. Sweat smudged in his eyes, the hairs on his body stood on end, gooseflesh prickled over his skin. Scully was sound asleep beside him.   
William. He was coming.  
A fresh set of tears tracked down his cheeks.   
William. Miracle. Son. Saviour.


	7. The bright, the light, the relief, the hope

Flirty was the new skepticism with Scully this year. Since the bizarre New Year zombie case where she let him kiss her in a public place, she’d relaxed into a new version of herself. He kind of missed the quirking brow and the rolling eyes. And he especially missed the pursed lips. But, he thanked his lucky stars every day for the jutting chin, the hands on hips pose, the smiling and the giggling. That lush sound that fluttered from her throat gave him tingles.  
The flight to Oregon was a gift. The financial review of the X Files had been nothing but a flimsy excuse to end their work dressed up in well-cut suits and jargon. It made them both determined to go out on a high.   
The cabin was cool and Scully draped a blanket over them both. She rested her head on his shoulder, her arms in his lap where she stroked him lazily with her eyes shut and her cheeks getting pinker.  
“You should stop now, Scully,” he whispered.  
“Or what?” she said, purring into his neck.  
He shifted in the seat, unlocking his stiff knees and finding respite in the removal of her insistent hands from his nether regions. The man across the aisle from him held him in a knowing stare for a couple of uncomfortable seconds and he managed to push Scully further back into her own seat. For her own good.  
“Spoilsport,” she said with a huff.  
“You can pick right back up where you left off when we get to the motel.” He said into her ear. “Please.”  
She smiled at him. Broadly, all teeth and dimples and screwed up nose. He let that wondrous image sink slowly into his memory. That smile would no doubt prove to be a salve at some point in the future, he mused, a pain relief or an anti-depressant.

 

He remembered telling Scully, years ago, that he’d never thought of her as a mother before. Now, his arrogance astounded him. Her professionalism and cool detachment on the job were just a mark of her quality as an agent, and no reflection on her capacity to love or nurture. He knew that now. Had witnessed it with Emily, sweet but fated to die.   
Seeing Scully with Theresa Hoese’s baby just reminded him again of how much she’d lost. It lanced through his gut with a fresh pain. He wanted so badly to smother her with his own love, to compensate for what she was missing, for what she could not give – maternal love to her own child. How twisted was that? How could his love for her, although overwhelming, be a match for a mother’s love for a child? He felt the corners of his mouth twitch, his eyes burn, as she whispered to the baby. 

Later, when she was in his arms, fighting for breath and for a grasp on reality, he brushed her hair away from her beautiful face and sucked back the tears that threatened again. He cursed himself for not being strong enough to send her away earlier. He felt sick that he still placed his need for her to be by his side over her wellbeing. 

She was lying on the bed in her motel room, the colour slowly rising in her cheeks. “Mulder, I don’t need you to make decisions for me. You have nothing to feel guilty about. I thought we’d been through this when we decided to have a relationship.”   
He folded his arms over his chest, pressing in the emotional outburst that would be unwise and unnecessary. He took a deep breath. “You make it sound so clinical, Scully.”   
“I could recount the chemical reaction of a physical attraction if you really wanted clinical.” Her eyebrow arched, not quite to the level of a healthy Scully, but enough to show him she was feeling better.  
“I just meant…”  
“I know what you meant, Mulder.” She pushed herself up on to her elbow. “I feel the same way. You should know that by now. But our personal lives must be kept separate from our professional partnership. We’re here on a case. Let’s do our jobs and then we can go home and be lovers again.”  
“Why are you always so sensible?” He flopped on the bed next to her.   
“I thought I was clinical?”  
“You’re rational.”  
“Not judicious?”  
“Practical,” he countered.  
“Not sagacious?”  
“Level-headed.”  
“Not pig-headed?”  
“I think you’ll find that’s me, Scully.”  
“I think we can both be a little more than tenacious at times,” she said, rewarding him with a small smile.  
“I love your tenacity.”  
“I love your determination.”  
“I love your resolve,” he said, enjoying the warmth of her pressed by his side.  
“I love your persistence.”  
“I love your doggedness.”  
She giggled at that one. “I love your puppyness.” She kissed his cheek and stood up. “Let’s go. Work to do.”  
“Are you really feeling better, Scully?”  
“I’m fine.”  
He flopped back down on the bed, hand on his forehead. “I walked into that one.”

When he flew back to Oregon without her, he felt it like a physical weight. He couldn’t breathe without the pain of her absence jabbing him in the ribs. Skinner saw it. But she was safe. That was some kind of relief.  
The force of the light was strong. So strong that he felt her slipping away from him. His mind was a jumble of images, her lips, her tiny feet, her hair, her eyes, her smile. He tried to pull back, to call to Skinner, but his body moved forward against his will. He saw faces he recognised. They called to him, these people. Were they his friends? Why weren’t they calling Skinner? His temples throbbed. There were so many voices but he couldn’t hear a thing. Where was Scully? She would know what to do. She was the sensible one. Rational. Practical. Why was he going into the light? Why couldn’t he stop?   
It was so beautiful, the light. The sense of calm hit him as he stepped into the circle. The voices stilled. His body stopped trembling. He looked up. If only Scully could see this. 

He wasn’t sure how long he’d been on the ship. It was constantly dark in the room they kept him in, when they weren’t drilling and pulling and scraping and cutting. In the darkest dark, in the quietest instants of terror, in the deepest despair, in the times when he only knew he was alive because the beating of his heart screamed in his ears, those were the moments when he allowed himself to view the treasured, stored image of Scully’s smile, all teeth and dimples and screwed up nose.   
It was the time he let the tears flow. It was the bright, the light, the relief, the hope.


	8. Returning

When the door opened and he stepped over the threshold of 42 Hegal Place for the first time in months, he felt the earth shift on its axis. He stopped, holding on to the wall, trying to get his equilibrium. Scully waited, hiding her anxiety by reciting a checklist of all the things she’d done in his absence. She watched as he traced his fingers over surfaces, picture frames, his computer monitor; he checked his tank, he opened the fridge, the closet, the cupboard under the sink.   
What she couldn’t see was the way he processed each new feeling, new sight, new sound, new touch, new smell. He couldn’t tell her how he’d missed the smell of the book shelf where he stored his journals. He couldn’t tell how often he’d pictured the messy desk in front of his window, how he’d recreated the layout of his living room just so that in his mind he could lay on his couch and drift away. The pain of his then reality seemed to lessen when he did that.  
He couldn’t tell her that when he closed the bathroom door he buried his face in the towels hanging over the rack and inhaled, or how he’d run his toothbrush over his tongue, or how he’d inspected the blade on his razor. He’d relished pumping the hand sanitizer just to catch a waft of the lemongrass smell that Scully had put him on to, before.

She stood in his kitchen, filling the kettle and filling him in on Scully family news, on office politics, on every detail but what he really needed to know. She looked glorious in profile, all curves and soft lines against the linear aspect of his kitchen.   
“How are you really feeling, Mulder?” She’d walked across the kitchen floor and was holding his wrist before he realised she’d even moved.   
He shook his head. “I feel fine.” How could he tell her that he felt like he didn’t belong anywhere? Like his entire life had passed him by, not just months. That he ached when he saw her rounded belly, ached with some unspeakable want.  
“I can stay,” she whispered, cupping his cheek with her hand. Tears tracked down her face.   
He wanted to nod, to say yes, to hold her close, to feel the soft skin of her arms around him, to smell her hair, to feel her sweet breath on his face, to press close to her in the night. But the same thoughts terrified him.   
“I think I need to be alone.”  
She nodded. He hoped he detected disappointment in her slight downturn of her lips, in the way she pulled back from him, breathing out a quick breath and putting her hands on top of his.   
“Of course. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

He spent the night sitting on his couch, staring at the shadows play across the wall. The blinds were open. The street lights pooled in the wet outside. Headlights cast grayish beams through the window. The television played on silent, pictures flickering. His shoulders groaned, his neck taut with tension, his temples throbbed. He should sleep. The first night in his own apartment. He should go into his bedroom and sleep. He should. He really should.

Scully knocked. She seemed hesitant to come in. He watched her as she walked in, hands kneading the small of her back. His spot. She was distracted, picking up cushions and fluffing them, moving his throw a centimetre to the left, sitting on the couch, then standing back up.   
“You’re making me tired, Scully.” His throat was dry from fatigue and his voice rasped against his vocal chords.  
“You look exhausted, Mulder. I should let you get some more rest.”  
“No,” he said, moving forward to grab her by the elbow. He realised just how desperate he must have sounded when she startled slightly. He let her go. “I mean…please stay.”  
She licked her lips and moved back to the couch. “I came here to talk.”  
He sat next to her, taking a deep breath. “Then let’s talk.”

At first, the worst test was the one where they kept him in the pitch dark, in absolute silence, for days at a time. He became aware of the noises of his body, of each breath, each beat of his heart, each swallow, even the opening and closing of his eyes. He became aware of how many thoughts his mind processed each minute, how many of them were about Scully. At first, when they came for him, when he knew what was going to happen, he tried to shut down his mind, train himself to have a vision of nothing ready for the days of black. But it was impossible. Always impossible. By the end, it was almost a comfort, that time with just his thoughts of her.

She was crying again. Those silent tears that tore open his guts.   
“I’ve been trying to work out how to tell you, Mulder. What words to use. I’ve written it down, crossed it out, rehearsed it, abandoned it.” She chuffed out a laugh through her tears. “But I think what’s really important is the message, not the words used to deliver it.”  
“Just say it, Scully.”  
Tell me that you’ve moved on, that while you’re glad that I’m back, there’s no way we can return to how things were, that the IVF didn’t take with you, but I found another donor, that there’s no need for me to stay with the FBI now that you’ve been returned. He shuddered and closed his eyes, slipping back into the comfort of his black space. His thoughts of her. Thoughts that could not be shaped by the truth.  
She wiped away the tears with the back of her hand and leant forward to kiss him. “Mulder. I’m so happy you’re home. We’re going to have a baby.”  
She linked her arms around his neck and drew him close enough for him to feel her heart beat against his. Her belly was harder than expected, pressing insistently into his middle. The weight of it, their baby, was a pleasant surprise. He tentatively put his hand on her side, rubbing there, like he might signal his ownership to their child.  
“It will kick soon,” she whispered. “He or she is a very athletic baby.”   
He waited, but not for long.   
The fluttering under his hand took his breath away and he let the tears flow hard and fast.


	9. On the road

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What have they gained?

Those first nights on the road they were too wired to sleep, to eat, to make love. Mulder thought it was like being in a snow globe. Some cruel god had trapped them beneath the glass and shook their world, scattering memories, touches, words, cases, emotions, fears and dreams so they fell soundlessly around them. Neither of them had any understanding of what had happened, of what would happen. They just sank into lumpy mattresses and clung to the other as though their very biology would sustain them. He told her it was like they had given up on their own bodies. He told her they were too fatigued, too fragile to trust their own bodies to do it alone, so they depended on the breath, the beating heart, the sweat, the desperate clutch of fingers of the other to survive each night. 

But the days turned into weeks. The fear, at first magnified by each red-and-blue light in the distance, by each unexpected rap at their motel room door, by each raised voice, softened at the edges to become an underlying hum that kept his senses focused rather than sharpened. The sick weight of being fugitives lessened to become an occasional wave of nausea that passed through him when he woke, drenched, fighting the ghosts that haunted his nightmares. 

With each new town, Mulder felt the story of their recent history becoming more bizarre and less likely. Red roots had started to show in Scully’s now-brunette air. Her jaw, so tense when they set out weeks before, had softened and she complained less of headaches. He saw her smile this morning, when she watched a toddler trying to pick up a ball and throw it in the park across the street from their latest motel. His eyes burned at that - her softest, gentlest, most maternal smile. The one she’d used for Emily, for Theresa Hoese’s baby. For William.   
Thunder rumbled and wind screeched. The family in the park ran for shelter as rain pelted down.  
“Scully,” he called, as she closed the drapes.  
She turned to him, still wearing the ghost of the smile. “What?”  
He placed a hand on the bed, “I need to hear you breathing.”  
She cocked her head. “I’m still breathing, Mulder. This is real. This is our life now.” She walked across to him and sat on the bed, running her hand over his shoulder. “We need to make some decisions.”  
“I know. I know,” he nuzzled his face into the warmth of her side. “I’m just…”  
“Just what, Mulder?” She ruffled his hair and bent forward to kiss him.  
“I haven’t told you how grateful I am.”  
She pulled back, an odd look on her face. “Grateful? For being here, with you? You think you have to be grateful to me, Mulder?”  
“Scully, you’ve lost everything because of me. How can I not be grateful that you’re still here?”  
She stood up. “Mulder, I don’t need your gratitude. I just need you to understand that everything I’ve done has been my own choice, and not done out of some sense of loyalty to you. You haven’t made me do anything I haven’t wanted to. I love you. I want to be with you. I haven’t lost any more than you. In fact, I’d like to think that on some level we’ve both gained something through all this.”   
Her speech reminded him of that hallway scene, from what seemed like lifetimes ago. She had been tired then, he remembered, picturing the circles under eyes, the way her voice had sounded, laced with fatigue and defeat.   
He shook his head. “What have we gained, Scully?”

 

When Skinner had told him about William, the adoption, the flare of anger in his gut was white hot. He hated her for an instant. But more, he hated himself that he’d put her in that position. He had lost their family.   
“Our son, Mulder. I gave him up.” Her tears wet his cheek but he couldn’t cry, not then. He vowed he would tell her, confess that it was his fault. Those would be his last words, so that she didn’t have to live with the burden she’d placed on herself for the rest of her life without him. But then they broke him out, his friends, his bosses, his ghosts.

She didn’t bother to stop her tears. “We’ve gained more than most people, Mulder. We’ve got the chance to start anew. We can be whoever we want to be. We can go wherever we want to go. We can write our own future.”  
His Scully, his skeptical, rational, logical Scully was giving him a lecture on hope in a motel room while rain lashed at the window. That was his role in this loop of their relationship, wasn’t it?   
“Scully, what future do you want?” What future is there, without our son?  
“Whatever it holds, it will be with you. That’s what I fought for, Mulder. That’s why we’re here now.”   
“And William?”  
She walked forward to him again, tears still tracking down her face. She sat on the edge of the bed again, picked up his hand in hers and placed it against her breast and then against his. “He’s here with us. He always will be. He’s safe here.” She kissed his knuckles.  
He unclasped their hands and pulled her over him. “I’m sorry, Scully. I’m sorry. I never told you. I thought I was protecting you, him, but in the end I lost him.”  
Her lips were soft against his jaw line, his neck, his ear. “You didn’t lose him. I didn’t lose him. We didn’t lose him. We made him, we loved him… we love him still. He’s safe. He’s going to grow up happy and healthy and make people laugh and annoy them and be a friend and a lover and anything he wants to be. And that’s because of you and because of me. And we can only live if we believe. And if we can’t live then what is the point? William will lose. I can only do this if that is the truth. Do you understand?”  
He blinked, unable to form words. He gazed at her as she hovered over him, her eyes filled with an immutable conviction.   
She kissed his quivering lips. “You can let go, Mulder. Don’t hold them back.”  
And each tear he shed, she kissed away until they were back in the snow globe, with their memories, touches, words, cases, emotions, fears and dreams filing back into their minds to savor and sift through in the future they had yet to write.


	10. Don't give up

In the past couple of years Fox Mulder had shed more tears than he cared to think about. There were days where he couldn’t get out of bed, couldn’t raise his head off the pillow to even dry his eyes. Depression, that’s what Scully diagnosed. She prescribed medication that weighed him down, not just his body but his mind. He was perpetually fighting through a fog of weariness. His appetite dwindled, even for his favourite sunflower seeds. His ribs stuck out, his jaw and cheek bones jutted out of his skin giving his face a sharp look that just made him even more miserable. When he refused to take the drugs she took him to task and that further deepened his misery. He was failing – failing her, failing their past, failing their future.   
“I’m leaving.” Those were her words. He thought she meant she was heading west to see her mother for a few days. His woolly mind didn’t register that she meant that as a permanent relationship status. When she packed more than just her small flight bag, the fog descended and his vision reduced to pinpricks in the swirling mire of his thoughts. She was leaving him.  
“Mulder, I love you. I will always love you. But it seems to me that I’m hurting you more than I’m loving you at the moment. I’ve tried everything I can think of to help you but my best, my science, my faith, my love, none of these things is working. I truly believe that if I leave, it will give you the best chance to fight this.”  
He didn’t fight. Not at first. He wallowed and flailed, he cursed and bruised his knuckles on the brickwork, he hated her, he loved her. And he cried. 

She visited. Checked up on him, called him, sent him text messages, talked about her work. She sounded content. He hated her, he loved her. And he cried. She cooked for him occasionally. He ate without tasting. She did his groceries. She changed his bed sheets. Sometimes he could imagine that she had never left. He would pretend that the wheels on her car didn’t spin on the boggy patch outside the front door where she insisted on parking. He would pretend that she didn’t drive too fast over the ditches and bumps in the driveway that separated him from the rest of the world. He would pretend that she hadn’t filled his script again and left the bottle on the kitchen bench. A small white reminder of his big black problem.

On his birthday, she turned up and made him take a shower and a shave.   
“We’re going out, Mulder.”  
He didn’t want to go out. Going out was just a further reminder of how badly he’d failed. He wanted to curl up in a ball and cry. But he took a shower and ran the razor over his chin and cheeks, savouring the nicks and stings as signs that he was actually still alive.  
“You smell good,” she said, reaching out a hand to rest on his forearm. “And if you put on those dark denims with that pale blue tee I got you for our…” she lowered her gaze and chuffed out a sigh, “well, you know the one, you’ll look good too, Mulder.” She kissed his cheek. The skin still smarted but her touch could always heal.   
He didn’t ask where they were going, but she pulled up outside the movie theatre and he saw the billboard advertising ‘Caddyshack’ and his heart skittered in his chest. Somewhere in the deep fog he recalled a night years before. He turned to smile at her, to thank her. She was already beaming at him, so proud.   
“You hate this movie, Scully.”  
“When it’s my birthday, you can take me to see ‘Steel Magnolias’.”

 

She came for Thanksgiving and cooked a turkey almost as big as she was. She came at Christmas too, bearing gifts and smiles and positive encouragements. He didn’t have the heart to tell her that he hadn’t slept for days and his hands trembled with fatigue and he’d broken one of the vases someone had given them when they got married. He’d always hated that vase, but she would fill it with fresh flowers and put it in the centre of the dining table every weekend.   
In the evening, when he could barely function, she picked up her coat and bag and gave him her best doctorly look.   
“You should go to bed, Mulder.”  
“I can’t sleep for days. Then when I do sleep, that’s all I do. But I’m still so fucking tired, Scully.”  
She licked her lips. “You should consider the medication, Mulder. I know it’s not what you want but antidepressants are a proven…”  
“I didn’t get you a present.”  
“Getting better would be the best present you could give me, Mulder.”  
He sighed. “That’s emotional blackmail, Scully.”  
She opened the door and a cool blast of air sharpened his senses for a moment. “Anyway, you did get me a present, Mulder. Even if you didn’t realise it.”  
He frowned.   
“You broke that hideous vase that Skinner’s old secretary gave us. That thing was so ugly, I’m glad I never have to see it again. Thank you. That rates pretty high among my Christmas gifts.”  
“I thought you liked it.”  
“I thought you did.”  
“You were never very good at flower-arranging, Scully.”  
“I tried. I’m very good at being tenacious.”  
He smirked. “You don’t give up.”  
“And neither should you.”

The bottle of pills promised so much. He wondered how something so small could offer such a life-changing experience, but then again he’d known Dana Scully for twenty-something years. He unscrewed the lid and swallowed one. He couldn’t expect an instant hit, and that wasn’t what he’d got with Scully either. She’d grown on him, got under his skin, moved into his heart, case-by-case, year-by-year, quirked-eyebrow-by-quirked-eyebrow, smile-by-smile. It was a delicious, intoxicating, slow-burn of a love. Patience. Time. Steps forward, steps backwards. That’s what he’d signed up for with her. That’s what he was signing up for now. 

The case was bizarre. A monster, a real-life, honest-to-god monster man with a heart of gold and the naïve nature of a child. And yet the most burning image in his mind when he got home was that of Scully on a bed, bare-legged in one of his tees, listening, trying to interrupt and telling him this was how she liked her Mulder. Her Mulder.  
He laid on the couch and flicked on the tv. ‘Steel Magnolias’.   
She didn’t even bother to knock. It was raining outside and she fussed around the doorway flicking off her umbrella and hanging up her coat. He watched her every movement, the relief on her face when she kicked off her heels, the way she smoothed her hair away from her shoulders, despite it being damp and likely to frizz soon. The way she put her bag on the chair she’d always put her bag on. The way she headed to the fridge, retrieved the Pinot Grigio and grabbed two glasses from the rack in one practised move. She sat down, poured the wine and held up her glass. She smiled at him. She smelled of rain.  
“I got here as quickly as I could.” She said it like it should mean something to him.  
“I didn’t call you. I’m not in need of medical attention, Scully.”  
Her lips quivered in to a half-smile. “I know that, Mulder. I saw the tv guide. It’s like a sign, or something.”  
“A sign?”  
“You know like an omen, a portent, a prophecy, a premonition…”  
He frowned. “Have you been taking some kind of recreational medication, Dr Scully? You know like marijuana, cannabis, weed, hashish…”  
She smiled. “No, I did that once, but I didn’t much like it.”  
“Ooh, Scully. Did you inhale?”  
“Mulder, do you know what day it is today?”  
“It’s been Tuesday all day.”  
“Yes, but what date?”

Her body hadn’t changed much over the years. She was perhaps a little thinner, she worked out harder, but her curves and valleys were essentially the same. She made the same noises, screwed up her nose as she concentrated, tasted the same, urged him on with her nails in his buttocks in the same desperate way, sighed his name in that guttural, smoky way that drove him wildly on. Nothing had changed, apart from everything.   
After, she fitted into his side like they were from the same mould. “Who would have thought that the random screening of a 90s chick flick on your birthday would be the catalyst that brought you back to our bed, Scully.”  
“It’s an X-File, Mulder.”  
“Do you need me to investigate?”  
“I think you’ve probed quite enough for one day.”  
He chuckled. “Are you suggesting I’m not up for round two? I’m prepared to prove you wrong.” He nuzzled her neck and let her feel just how up for it he was.  
“I’m sure you are, Mulder. But you better put that away for another day. I’ve got to go.”  
“Why?”  
“There are things I need to do.”  
“At 2.08am on the Wednesday after your birthday?”  
“What can I say? It’s another X-File.” She got up and shifted the covers, finding her clothes, item by item.  
“You shouldn’t be out this late on your own, Scully.”   
“Mulder, I’m an FBI agent with a gun and a really short fuse. I’ve faced down mutants and monsters and men with bad attitudes for more years than I care to remember.” She bent over and kissed him as she zipped up her skirt. “I’ll be back.”  
“When?”

She made it back before 7am. She told him she hadn’t used her gun. She brought coffee and doughnuts and a couple of suitcases. And a gift wrapped in brown paper. “Thank the gods of consumerism for 24 hour shopping. Are you going to open it?”  
“It’s not my birthday, or yours anymore. It’s not Christmas or Thanksgiving. What’s the occasion, Scully?”  
“It’s an anniversary present.”  
He gulped.   
“Relax, Mulder. Not that anniversary.”  
He unpicked the tape at one end and lifted the paper. He did the same at the other end. He rolled the gift over and removed all the paper. There was a plain cardboard box. He looked at her and she quirked a brow.  
“Get on with it, Mulder. We’ve got to get to work.”  
He unfolded the ends of the box and lifted out the vase, the same pattern, the same hideous colours. He held it up and made a puking face. Her shoulders shook with silent laughter.  
“I can’t believe they still sell this design.” He watched her face, the genuine, unbridled laughter, so seldom heard. He had no doubt that she would now turn her hand to flower-arranging so that she would become the best she could be.  
She moved towards him to embrace him and her body was still quaking with laughter. He pulled her tight and let the infectious giggles transfer to him. He rested his chin on her head and felt the tears track down his face. He knew he would cry a lot this coming year. But good tears. Happy tears. Tears that meant he was not giving up.


End file.
